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Location
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5070 Pine Island Drive N.E.
Comstock Park, MI 49321
(616) 531-7455
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Service Times
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תפלות שחרית לשבת
Men's Shabbat Morning Prayers 9:00 am
Shabbat (Saturday) Worship Service, 10:30 am
Shabbat School (pre-school~young teens) 11:30 am
Oneg (Delighting in the Shabbat with food and fellowship) 12:45 pm
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Additional Readings
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לֶךְ־לְךָ
Lekh L'kha
B’resheet Chapter 14:18: “Malki-Tzedek 1מַלְכִּי צֶדֶק king of Shalem brought out bread and wine. He was cohen (priest) of El El’yon (G-D most High)….”
Tehillim (Psalms) 110:1: “ADONAI says to my L-rd (Master), ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”
Tehillim (Psalms) 110:4: “ADONAI has sworn it, and He will never retract—‘You are a cohen (priest) forever, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.’”1
Messianic Jews (Hebrews) 5:1~14: 1 For every cohen gadol taken from among men is appointed to act on people's behalf with regard to things concerning God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and with those who go astray, since he too is subject to weakness. 3 Also, because of this weakness, he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as those of the people. 4 And no one takes this honor upon himself, rather, he is called by God, just as Aharon was. 5 So neither did the Messiah glorify himself to become cohen gadol; rather, it was the One who said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father." 6 Also, as he says in another place, "You are a cohen forever, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek."1 7 During Yeshua's life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions, crying aloud and shedding tears, to the One who had the power to deliver him from death; and he was heard because of his godliness. 8 Even though he was the Son, he learned obedience through his sufferings. 9 And after he had been brought to the goal, he became the source of eternal deliverance to all who obey him,10 since he had been proclaimed by God as a cohen gadol to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.1 11 We have much to say about this subject, but it is hard to explain, because you have become sluggish in understanding. 12 For although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the very first principles of God's Word all over again! You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who has to drink milk is still a baby, without experience in applying the Word about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by continuous exercise to distinguish good from evil.
Messianic Jews (Hebrews) Chapter 7: 1 This Malki-Tzedek,1 king of Shalem, a cohen of God Ha'Elyon, met Avraham on his way back from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; 2 also Avraham gave him a tenth of everything. Now first of all, by translation of his name, he is "king of righteousness"; and then he is also king of Shalem, which means "king of peace." 3 There is no record of his father, mother, ancestry, birth or death; rather, like the Son of God, he continues as a cohen for all time. 4 Just think how great he was! Even the Patriarch Avraham gave him a tenth of the choicest spoils. 5 Now the descendants of Levi who became cohanim have a commandment in the Torah to take a tenth of the income of the people, that is, from their own brothers, despite the fact that they too are descended from Avraham. 6 But Malki-Tzedek,1 even though he was not descended from Levi, took a tenth from Avraham. Also, he blessed Avraham, the man who received God's promises; 7 and it is beyond all dispute that the one who blesses has higher status than the one who receives the blessing. 8 Moreover, in the case of the cohanim, the tenth is received by men who die; while in the case of Malki-Tzedek,1 it is received by someone who is testified to be still alive. 9 One might go even further and say that Levi, who himself receives tenths, paid a tenth through Avraham; 10 inasmuch as he was still in his ancestor Avraham's body when Malki-Tzedek1 met him.
11 Therefore, if it had been possible to reach the goal through the system of cohanim derived from Levi (since in connection with it, the people were given the Torah), what need would there have been for another, different kind of cohen, the one spoken of as to be compared with Malki-Tzedek1 and not to be compared with Aharon? 12 For if the system of cohanim is transformed, there must of necessity occur a transformation of Torah. 13 The one about whom these things are said belongs to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar; 14 for everyone knows that our Lord arose out of Y'hudah, and that Moshe said nothing about this tribe when he spoke about cohanim. 15 It becomes even clearer if a "different kind of cohen," one like Malki-Tzedek,1 arises, 16 one who became a cohen not by virtue of a rule in the Torah concerning physical descent, but by virtue of the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is stated, "You are a cohen FOREVER, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek."1 18 Thus, on the one hand, the earlier rule is set aside because of its weakness and inefficacy 19 (for the Torah did not bring anything to the goal); and, on the other hand, a hope of something better is introduced, through which we are drawing near to God. 20 What is more, God swore an oath. For no oath was sworn in connection with those who become cohanim now; 21 but Yeshua became a cohen by the oath which God swore when he said to him, "ADONAI has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a cohen forever.'" 22 Also this shows how much better is the covenant of which Yeshua has become guarantor. 23 Moreover, the present cohanim are many in number, because they are prevented by death from continuing in office. 24 But because he lives forever, his position as cohen does not pass on to someone else; 25 and consequently, he is totally able to deliver those who approach God through him; since he is alive forever and thus forever able to intercede on their behalf. 26 This is the kind of cohen gadol that meets our need - holy, without evil, without stain, set apart from sinners and raised higher than the heavens; 27 one who does not have the daily necessity, like the other cohanim g'dolim, of offering up sacrifices first for their own sins and only then for those of the people; because he offered one sacrifice, once and for all, by offering up himself. 28 For the Torah appoints as cohanim g'dolim men who have weakness; but the text which speaks about the swearing of the oath, a text written later than the Torah, appoints a Son who has been brought to the goal forever.
Messianic Jews (Hebrews) Chapter 8:1~6: 1 Here is the whole point of what we have been saying: we do have just such a cohen gadol as has been described. And he does sit at the right hand of HaG'dulah (The Greatness) in heaven. 2 There he serves in the Holy Place, that is, in the true Tent of Meeting, the one erected not by human beings but by ADONAI. 3 For every cohen gadol is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so this cohen gadol too has to have something he can offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he wouldn't be a cohen at all, since there already are cohanim offering the gifts required by the Torah. 5 But what they are serving is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly original; for when Moshe was about to erect the Tent, God warned him, "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain."
6 But now the work Yeshua has been given to do is far superior to theirs, just as the covenant he mediates is better. For this covenant has been given as Torah on the basis of better promises.
Messianic Jews (Hebrews) 10:1~18: 1 For the Torah has in it a shadow of the good things to come, but not the actual manifestation of the originals. Therefore, it can never, by means of the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, bring to the goal those who approach the Holy Place to offer them. 2 Otherwise, wouldn't the offering of those sacrifices have ceased? For if the people performing the service had been cleansed once and for all, they would no longer have sins on their conscience. 3 No, it is quite the contrary - in these sacrifices is a reminder of sins, year after year. 4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5 This is why, on coming into the world, he says, "It has not been your will to have an animal sacrifice and a meal offering; rather, you have prepared for me a body. 6 No, you have not been pleased with burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, 'Look! In the scroll of the book it is written about me. I have come to do your will.'" 8 In saying first, "You neither willed nor were pleased with animal sacrifices, meal offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings," things which are offered in accordance with the Torah; 9 and then, "Look, I have come to do your will"; he takes away the first system in order to set up the second. 10 It is in connection with this will that we have been separated for God and made holy, once and for all, through the offering of Yeshua the Messiah's body. 11 Now every cohen stands every day doing his service, offering over and over the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this one, after he had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from then on to wait until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has brought to the goal for all time those who are being set apart for God and made holy. 15 And the Ruach HaKodesh too bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 " 'This is the covenant which I will make with them after those days,' says ADONAI: 'I will put my Torah on their hearts, and write it on their minds . . . ,' " 17 he then adds, " 'And their sins and their wickednesses I will remember no more.' " 18 Now where there is forgiveness for these, an offering for sins is no longer needed.
Scripture references taken from the "Complete Jewish Bible" Translator: David H. Stern
Jewish New Testament Publications, inc.
It has been suggested that Malki-Tzedek was certainly a "Messiah Type" in Torah, but I believe that we can go on to suggest that He could have been Messiah Himself as revealed through one of His pre-incarnate appearances.
Footnote
1 Malki-Tzedek "My King of Righteousness" מַלְכִּי צֶדֶק
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Sh'mot (Exodus) Parashah 13
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Yisra'el's War in the Gaza is not an incursion levied against a people that identify themselves as Palestinians, but rather it is a defensive operative levied against the Spirit of Amalek. Rabbi Sha'ul's words to the Messianic Community in Ephesus explains clearly in Ch. 6:12 stating: "For we are not struggling against human beings, but against the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers governing this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm." CJB
Parashah 13, Sh'mot (Exodus)
Sh'mot 1:1~6:1* 21 Tevet 5769*1/17/09
A With the closing of Sefer B'resheet we have in part bid a final fare- well to the great Patriarchs and Matriarchs. While we leave their stories behind as recorded on the Divinely Inspired pages of Scripture, the spirits of these G-D~fearing forebearers will carry on even to this day as their in- fluence and participation in the Covenants that G-D made with them con- tinue to be walked out.
This weeks parashah Sh'mot, brings us into a whole new era of change, with a whole new cast of performers. G-D is going to raise up for Himself a redeemer from this nation of Hebrews housed within a nation of Egyptians, to deliver His people from oppression and slavery leading them to their own Promised Land. Unlike the Covenant of promise that G-D made with the patriarchs concerning future descendants, this G-D appointed redeemer of the Hebrews would begin a present fulfillment of these promises. The Patriarchs knew G-D as a Covenant maker and now He expresses Himself to this new generation as a covenant keeper.
Read B'resheet (Genesis) 17:1~6 pg 15; 28:1~4 pg 29; 35:9~12 pg 38; 48:1~4 pg 55
When Ya'akov's (Yisra'el's) family settled in Mitzrayim, they were but a small nation of seventy descendants. However, after the demise of this generation, the nation grows. Up until this weeks parashah, we read that all of G-D's promises concerning the phenomenal multiplying of the Hebrew people were in a future tense. However in today's parashah, Pharaoh perceives this Hebrew Nation, rapidly growing in numbers in his midst as a present threat, and declares war against them on the "battle- field of their fruitfulness."
Read Sh'mot (Exodus) Ch 1:5~14 pg 60
B So one of the terms of G-D's covenant with the patriarchs has now become manifest in the fruitfulness of the Hebrew people, and to counter the effects of this covenant in that it might come to fruition, there arises a new Pharaoh in Egypt that refuses to recognize that the great accomplish- ments that Yosef had procured for the land were any longer valid.
The lean years of famine had passed now and the state of economics were such that the business of agriculture and livestock had been restored to the land, so to continue operating under the rules of a Hebrew, a people who had now become a threat to his power, was no longer acceptable.
I don't think that this was just some kind of a jealous power struggle that this new King was experiencing, because he could have presented some terms and conditions to the Hebrews in an effort to make them allies with him, thus becoming a greater and stronger nation, but he didn't. What he proposes to the Hebrews was physical oppression in form fueled by a spirit of hatred with the hopes of interfering with G-D's covenant and annihilating the Hebrew people. By killing all of the male Hebrew babies there would be an ethical cleansing of sort, with the hopes that the women would assimilate into Egyptian culture and any further threat of this race would be eliminated. I refer to this spirit as the Spirit of Amalek
Read Sh'mot (Exodus 1:15~22
C The Meaning of the name Amalek: The term may be divided into amal - to toil, and the letter kuf, with the meaning 'ejection of the life-spirit' e.g. katal - to kill with removal of life-spirit. So Amalek means 'becoming dispirited (losing the spirit to live) as a result of hard labour and continuous toil'. Amalek represents intellectual doubt, the kind that erodes one's sense of belief that G-D has total authority and is running the world. The Hebrew word Amalek (in gematria) has the numeric value of 240, which is equal to the Hebrew word safek, which means doubt.
Amalekites were a tribe or consolidated tribes that were located in the area of the Sinai penninsula. They were in existence already in the time of Avraham (B'resh 14:7) and were referred to in Bil'am's prophecy as; "First among nations" (B'mid 24:20) or in other words, "the leading force of evil." The Amalekites are never mentioned as having been on friendly conditions with Yisra'el, but instead the references to them are always in terms of warfare. Just as Yisra'el was called as a leading force of good, Amalek is considered to be the leading force of evil. As a result, the struggle becomes the eternal struggle of good versus evil in this world.The first attack of Amalek against Yisra'el takes place following the Reed Sea miracle.
Read Sh'mot (Exodus) 17:8~16 pg 79
As we mentioned earlier, The Spirit of Amalek has one chief goal and objective, and that is to make G-D out to be a liar by interfering with His covenants to His people in an effort to invalidate them. So now, as we read, ADONAI Himself will take on Amalek generation after generation and will eventually completely blot out this name from under heaven. In Sh'mu'el Alef Ch 15 King Sha'ul is ordered by ADONAI to attack the Amalekites and completely destry them. He attacks and spares the Amalekite King Agag. Because of this disobedience, Sha'ul loses the King- ship. In Ch 27 King David attacks the Amalekites and crushes them. About 300 yrs later, in Divrei Hayamim Alef (I Chron. 4) King Hizkiyahu (Hezekiah) destroys a remant of the Amalekites once again in battle.
Seemingly disappearing from the pages of history as a nation, the spirit of Amalek resurfaces about 200 yrs later in the account of Esther through an actual descendant of Agag (King of Amalek) with the name of Haman. Once again this spirit attempted to destroy the Hebrew people in an effort to interfere with the covenant of G-D and render it invalid. Quiet or at least subtle for almost 300 yrs, finds the spirit of Amalek rising up again to interfere with G-D's covenant concerning His people and invalidate it. It expresses itself through the Syrian Greek ruler Antiochus IV who tries to force the Hebrew people into an assimilation of hellenism, forsaking the Laws of ADONAI G-D. Because it is a spiritual bat- tle the words of the prophet echo the victory as: "It's not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says ADONAI Tzva'ot."
Because Amalek is a spirit, it does not tire easily. Another 170 yrs pass and another covenant of promise that G-D had made with his people through the prophets starts to unfold in its fulfillment, only to be menaced once again by the invalidating spirit of Amalek. This too, speaks of One who is appointed and called by G-D out of Egypt like Moshe to redeem His people. Read Mattityahu (Matthew) 2:1~16 pg 1224
D In 70 CE, Rome destroys the Temple over 1 million Jews are killed
135 CE Hadrian kills 500,000 Jews banning them from Yisra'el and renaming the Land Palestine.
527-1012 CE Medieval period, forced conversions or death and expulsion
1073~1492 Middle Ages period of the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition
1516~1719 CE Reformation period Luther's anti~semitic book "Against the Jews and their lies", First ghettos established, literally thousands killed in Poland and Ukraine, blood libel charges come out in France
1768~1877 CE Enlightenment period Nicholas I called the Russian Haman considers the Jews to be parasites on society seeks to destroy them, Anti~semitism rises in the United States during the Civil War
1878~1945 Modern era Pogroms in Europe, "Protocal of the Elders of Zion" written against the Jews because of Russia's structural problems, Henry Ford publishes the same work in America under the title: "The International Jew" WW I, WW II, and....The Holocaust
1948 G-D says to Amalek; "Enough for Now" and Yisra'el becomes a State again
1950~present Post modern era brings the spirit of Amalek through a consolidated organization of Arab countries vowing to "Push Yisra'el into the Sea," and to "Wipe her from off of the face of the Map." And most current is the spirit of Amalek making the same threats to eradicate the Jewish people and the Jewish Nation through the guise of a terrorist cell that is so aptly named: Chamas which means destruction or to destroy.
Revelation Ch 12 shows us four distinct areas of attack that Ha- Satan will pursue. A study in and of itself, let's look at the highlites. Turn to Revelation 12 pg 1543 The first area of attack is against the very person of Messiah Read vs 1~6
The 2nd area of attack is against the power and authority of Messiah because the war moves from the earth up to the throne of heaven, but Mikha'el our Messiah's General archangel whose area of responsibility is the Jewish people, blocks the attack. Read vs 7~9
The third area of attack is against the people who have given their lives to Messiah as martyrs for the sake of the Beseuras HaGeulah. But they too defeat HaSatan, because of the blood of the Lamb. And when the Adversary is hurled out of heaven, he once again becomes pursuant to the destruction of the Jewish people on earth. Read vs 10~16
The final attack comes against against the believers, the natural branch believers and those grafted in who proclaim and bear witness to Yeshua. Read vs 17
If HaSatan can destroy the Jewish people before they can repent and trust in Messiah as a Nation, Messiah will not return, and the Adversary will be free to continue to prowl like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour. We are the "rest of her children, and I believe that we have work to do. The greatest act of Amalek anti~semitism is not sharing the Beseuras HaGeulah with our Jewish brothers and sisters.
G-D is involved always with the fate of His people, their victories are His and their enemies are His as well. As you may have perceived, the spirit of Amalek is none other than the great dragon HaSatan deceiver of the world and manifest in and through the lives of those that share a common desire to make G-D out to be a liar. Ephesians 6:12 explains: "We are not struggling against human beings....but against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm." E The Book of Revelation explains to us with two important reasons why HaSatan has been trying to destroy the Jewish people since the Book of B'resheet. The first reason is to; undermine and make invalid G-D promises to His people as we've stated previously. The second reason is to stop the return or Second Coming of Messiah Yeshua, which among other things ushers in the eventual demise of the Adversary.
Gut Shabbes! Rav Chovel
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